Amused Three Part Healing Series

So many people have not been able to overcome the voice of the critic within. It continues to have power, negatively impacting our lies. As a community we recognized the need to bring healing to the area of the overactive Critic.

You can imagine the voice of the Critic traveling very easily down well worn pathways in the brain - these pathways have been grooved over a long period of time. If we could just cut it off or make it stop, we would have done that a long time ago. What we really need is to re-purpose the channel or pathway that the Critic has been using, by infusing aMusement into that same pathway through Intentional Creativity process.

As you paint using affirmation and energy, you are re-purposing the pathway of the Critic, and making it a new pathway for the Muse to also inhabit. You are allowing your brain to rewire itself, literally changing the way you think, feel and act!

With this drawing and painting exercise, we're inviting you to a relationship with your Muse, and the wild instincts within that you may have been hiding, normalizing, or sequestering. Often, even if we're creating, we're not really listening for that deep inner voice, because we haven't been taught how to. Maybe no one mentioned to us a a choice.

You will know if the Muse is here because there's a level of aMusement, of playfulness and embodiment. A level of play with no apology - and that's what we're hoping you experience with this Intentional Creativity process with the Muse!

Here is a bold question for you: What is a name within you that is hidden? The name of your Muse -your true inner voice - that has a unique identity all its own?

Have some fun coming up with this. First of all, think about your favorite verb right now - dancing, singing, shouting, illuminating, etc - pick one. Then, think about something you love in your life that is a noun (person, place, thing) - pick one. Now join the two together! What did you get? Singing Bird? Laughing Dog? Use this as a starting point for naming your muse, while also asking what name wants to be revealed.

Do some journaling and see what comes through when you just let the pen flow and consciousness stream. This is about bringing an aspect of yourself that is out of the ordinary, playful and fun to the surface.

Once you've accessed that name, or at least have a clue, you're going to start treating yourself with that name. This is activating the name of your Muse.

We often think we need to hide, silence, or cut off the Critic, but that is impossible. Today we're here to instead reform our relationship with the Critic, as the Critic often has something valuable to teach us.

We like to say that the Critic lives in the prefrontal cortex - or the prefrontal dominatrix, for some! - the space of logic, reason, and quick processing. However, when this part of the brain is over-accessed, we are prevented from reaching flow state. When the Critic is overactive, we are inundated with its negative chatter, and in order to get past that we need to create! By creating we can begin to establish a link between the good feelings and flow of creativity and the voice that says 'you're not good enough'. The goal is to link these parts of us and begin to integrate them! You need to invite you Critic to tea, listen to what she is saying, and allow the wisdom of the Muse to help the situation.

Today, as you move through this process, the fragmentation you have within between the Critic and the Muse could actually be healed and changed. As soon as you know that the voice of the Muse and Critic are one in the same and it is about connecting the brain with the heart and voice, then you get a sense of integration. But how do you actually connect them? We're going to show you that today through an Intentional Creativity process in which we will request that the Critic and the Muse come together and integrate so we can really hear our true inner voice clearly!

But...the Muse doesn't take orders. You have to give you an invitation, a seduction...something to work with. So today we will be doing some metacognitive drawing - thinking about thinking - that will help call the Muse forward. We are going to draw the two faces of the Critic and the Muse becoming one. Through drawing this integration, we're working to heal the fragmentation between the voice of the soul and the body and that negative, discouraging chatter in the brain.

To really make this work effective for you, you're going to want to come up with your own affirmation for this, such as, "As I do this drawing I am healing the fragmentation between my critic and my muse." In speaking this affirmation and bringing it into your creative process, you are bringing yourself to a precipice of transformation. Take a moment to come up with this affirmation for yourself now.

For our next step, we are going to give an invitation to the Critic and the Muse, or the mechanisms of the brain and the body, to start working together.

Start by drawing a text 'box' area - a select place that you will add text to later on. Draw whatever shape you want and put it where you want on your paper.

You will then draw the Critic and Muse intuitively by placing the pen on the page and attempting to make your shapes without moving your pen from the page - in one fluid stroke. Once that initial drawing is done, you can go in and add details to bring out more features and add in any embellishments.

Now you're going to write the healing - if the Critic and the Muse could be integrated together and those parts of your brain could be connected, what would be possible? Write whatever comes to mind in the text box we drew before. This can be one single word like "freedom" or even a phrase or sentence. Let the pen lead the way.

For your next step, color in the image and literally integrate the reality that you've done this work - that the Critic and the Muse are now in a deeper connection than they've ever been before! The belief you can hold is that this is actually being repaired in the moment.

Choose three colors that call to you. Start by spraying the paper with water. Choose one color to begin with and fill in your image with it, leaving a little bit of white space in between each edge. You don't have to think about it too much as the design has already been created. Use this color to fill about 50% of the page.

Then switch your brush and use the next color. If you feel like it, you can bring some more design elements in with your color strokes. Feel the pleasure of the color and the shape and the awareness that YOU are doing this work. It's happening in the brain and in the body. You're just playing and coloring. Take your time with this part.

Once you've completed this second layer of color, you are now going to mix the two colors together on your paintbrush and begin to add a third layer of integrated color onto the painting. As you bring this color in, you are repeating an affirmation to yourself "I am Integrating. The work is happening now. I am healing fragmentation." Whatever comes up for you. The third color is the connection between the two that shows these are now working together for your good. Integration is happening.

This exercise is about healing the fragmentation of the inner eyes - how you see from the inside versus what you see on the outside. If you are fragmented in that way, you may not really recognize your own life. You will feel disconnected. When we are an integrated self - the inside self and outside self connected - we live with a powerful experience of alignment, creative flow, and joy. We don't say yes to anything that doesn't light us up! We know who we are and what we're here to cause and create.

Before we move into the next exercise, we want you to recall the name of your Muse, which you chose earlier. We invite you take a moment to truly embody that muse. Whatever the name is - be goofy and uninhibited with it. You want to be so wild that someone would think you were off your rocker if they were to see you! Put on some great music and just get into it. Dance around as your Muse self all wild, goofy, and feeling good! You are stepping into Muse energy here!

It's time for a dance party!

Get a pen - we're going to draw inside eyes and outside eyes and bring them together. This is a very simple yet profound process.

Use two sides of the page. You will start with an eye that represents the inside self, then draw the eye that represents the outside self. You will not take the pen off the paper for the entire stroke.

Now draw a series of eyes underneath each eye that is inspired by what you already drew. By doing this you are acknowledging that both of these ways of seeing are valuable and important, and you are integrating them together. By drawing it and repeating it, we are reinforcing it in the brain.

Now switch to another pen color. This is where metacognitive drawing comes in. You are drawing a line of connection between your inside eyes and outside eyes. As you draw it you are affirming it.

Start with your pen in the center and move through the image connecting both the inside and outside eyes and speaking the affirmation as you do this. The connection is complete. The practice takes time to integrate. You have begun!

You are now integrating your outside self with your inner self. This process helps us to connect elements of ourselves that - when disconnected - cause incredible havoc because we create a life that doesn't match who we really are inside. When they are connected there is profound healing and we can make decisions that are aligned with our highest level of intuition and access.

All of this is hardwired in your body, brain and field, which also holds are these stories, so you are the only one who can bring everything back together again. And with this exercise, you are doing it!

For your next step you will get two colors of paint. Spray down the paper before you bring the color in. You are going to be integrating these ideas - your inside seeing and outside seeing connecting together - by putting them into physical form through paint on the paper. As you add color, let it be meditative for you. Feel what is arising for, and speak your affirmations as you go "Fragmentation is being healed - this is happening right now". Your brain is rewiring in real time.

Once you have added the first and second color, mix them together and add the integrated color to the image. Feel the integration continuing to happen and see it amplified through the color you are adding.

After you are complete with adding your integration colors, go ahead and do a journal process and ask the question: What in my life feels fragmented - where the inside of me doesn't match the outside of me? Be brave and honest with yourself, and try to come up with at least 7 things. This is not about the past, this is about right now in your life. This is about accessing your truth and recognizing that you are also right now through this painting, are working to heal the fragmentation you have become aware of.

Both sides of the brain are creative. Science tells us that the left brain is more linear and the right brain is more in flow. The right brain sees the whole and the left brain sees the parts. The challenge with being more left brain, critical, or logical is that we don't see the whole. When we are only looking at our life in parts, and don't have a visionary perspective that is able to see the whole, we often make choices that are not in alignment with our soul's desires and our inner truth. When we can expand more into right brain, creative and abstract thinking - seeing our life as a whole - we gain a perspective, an inspiration and vision, that can then inform our left brain and have both sides of our brain working together. We move from the heart, then to the head, from seeing the whole, to moving into the parts. We approach our challenges and our dreams this way, and find that what we desire is more possible than we used to believe!

In Part Three of this Intentional Creativity process, we are going to work on integrating the left brain and the right brain. Before we begin, take a moment to close your eyes and acknowledge that you are choosing right now to begin rewiring connections between your left and right brain. Give yourself praise and acknowledgement for showing up for this work and being here. Ask yourself, what is the feeling that you want to feel more than anything in the whole world? Just invite yourself to feel that right now - whatever it is - as if it is happening right now. Each time you affirm this feeling, imagine you are infusing it into every part of you. Hold onto this feeling as we move into the process.

Now, we also want you to revisit the name of your Muse! Remember the name your came up with in the begining (your verb and your noun) - how is that name feeling? Are you connected with it? Or is it shifting? Now is a great time to revisit your Muse name and feel into what fits - doing so with the same playful, open energy as before.

For this part of the process, we will begin by decorating our page with a design that is much like a place of honor. Follow the inspiration of your Muse here. Once you've created the space to invite the Muse to come forward, you can also add some details.

After making this shape, you will begin to draw the face of your Muse. In the video for this process, Shiloh Sophia offers a simple method for drawing the face at the 00:55:55 minute mark. It will be helpful to watch along for this.

Once you have your face drawn, you can ask you Muse what she is wanting for hair or any embellishments that are desired. Follow your intuition and stay loose and playful. If you have a specific symbol or image you want to bring in but don't know how to draw, you can use Google and look up the name of what you want to draw + 'line art' in search. This will help you get the basics down onto the page and will be a fun creative learning process!

After drawing this out, you're going to write in somewhere on the image, the name of your Muse. You will also add your own signature. This image is meant to represent the work you did today through the three Intentional Creativity processes you have journeyed through. This is about the experience of creating an image that represents the feeling you've been working with since you started.

Now choose a couple of colors to paint your Muse with. Start with one layer of color and have fun as you add it in. Be mindful and meditative as you go along, really connecting to the feeling of your Muse as you paint. Choose colors just because you feel like it. Add them one color at a time. This is about whimsy and intuition, more than logic. You are learning to not dominate the outcome. Letting it unfold the way that it wants to. If we don't dominate it, what will happen. What will open up?

As you paint ask, "What wants to be revealed?" You are welcoming a wild and flowing energy here - it's just you and your Muse.

Once you've identified the feeling or message of your Muse, you can hold onto that energy for this season of your life. It is here to inform you and support you.

Take you time with this. Add as much color and details as you feel called to, perhaps even adding in some lighter washes to some areas. The suggestion here is to be a little loose with yourself so you feel this sense of freedom. What else whats to happen?

After this, come back over and begin to do some more detail work and design. With this experience, you are beginning to repair parts of yourself that perhaps you have never had the chance to acknowledge as needing healing. The work of Intentional Creativity is to make conscious and bring into our awareness things we have not found language to talk about and have not been fully conscious of.

With this painting process, you are beginning to see the whole in the image you have made, as well as the parts - the specific pieces of the image, its shapes and features and elements. Imagine coming to your life being able to see things in wholes - the whole possibility - rather than seeing just the parts. The whole is the image of what's possible.

This is about dreaming into the whole instead of being caught up in the parts.

To complete, this journey of healing with the Muse, you will do a writing in your journal that starts with "The desire of my heart..." and allow the Muse to complete that writing. Let the Muse take over the pen and the Muse voice to flow through you. Hold the energy and frequency of your Muse, and trust whatever comes through. This is another important step of integration after having completed the three parts of this Intentional Creativity Healing series. You will notice that what comes through you now is probably a little different. There will be new insight and new information, perhaps even a new sense of yourself.

A M U S E D

Process to Integrate the Critic and the Muse with Shiloh Sophia

A three-part Intentional Creativity process for healing fragmentation
and connecting left and right brain!

PART ONE
Integrating the Critic and the Muse

Step One - Naming and Activating Your Muse

Step Two - Healing Transformation
Inviting the Critic to Tea and Cultivating Affirmations

Step Three - Invitation for Both of Them

Step Four - Integrating a New Reality

PART TWO
Integrating Freedom through Metacognitive Drawing

Step One - Inside Eyes and Outside Eyes

Step Two - Lines of Metacognitive Integration

Step Three - Bringing Color Integration

Step Four - Journaling

PART THREE
Journey of Alignment - Integrating the Left and Right Brain

Step One - The Face of the Muse

Step Two - The Colors and Feeling of your Muse

Step Three - Seeing the Whole

Step Four - Journaling and Completion